Fill out this form. Get the red, white, and blue 1, 2, and 3 pound scales from the post office.

You need them.

Seriously.

I use them ALL THE TIME.

Dude. They’re free. Stop resisting.

I just played Tetris on my DS against someone in Japan. He or she kicked my ass but good, but still, little pink box, no wires, connected to Japan. Tetris. Awesome.

Thanksgiving weekend is winding down, and I have of course really screwed up my sleep schedule. I managed to get up at 1 today, but tomorrow will be a struggle. This always happens to me on long weekends. It happens to me on regular weekends, too; I’m just nocturnal or something. It’s only been four years since I stopped working third shift, and I did it for seven years before that, so maybe three years from now I’ll be fixed and able to sleep at night again. I doubt it, but maybe. 2009 is my year.

I got off work early on Wednesday and went to the grocery store, picking up almost a ridiculous amount of stuff for someone who lives alone. I made my family’s stuffing that night, it was a hit on Thursday, and all was well with Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe I can handle Christmas away from home too. I can be strong. I just need something familiar. Stuffing, a parent or two, perhaps asparagus. It works out.

Friday night I went down to Woodbridge and played pool at Hard Times with Lin and Alan and Loy (!) and a couple of their friends from their WoW guild, one of whom used to play Med but who I don’t think does anymore. We had about four pitchers of beer and played some really, really terrible pool, and then we went to Denny’s. I got home at three o’clock in the morning. I haven’t done anything like that in so many years. Go out to a bar, then eat pancakes? Who was that?

The Race (as documented in this post, which I keep updating but which you don’t keep checking) will go down to its final three teams tonight. It’s very exciting. All I can hope for is that Rob and Kimberly are eliminated by some fluke, leaving me with two teams I want to win and one sacrificial lamb in the finals. I don’t care if Dustin and Kandice win or if James and Tyler do. As long as it isn’t the whiny Alabamians or the “We’re done. We just lost. It’s over. I quit.” team.

Lastly, I read the RSS feed for a blog that just tracks the weekly (sometimes more) free downloads on the iTunes Music Store. Every week there’s a “Discovery Download,” which is a small group you haven’t heard of, and a free Single of the Week, which isn’t. I really like the Discovery Download song this week. You can go here for a link to download it for free. If I’m reading it right, it’ll be free until Tuesday. http://freeitunessongs.blogspot.com/2006/11/rodrigo-y-gabriela-tamacun.html

You know how they don’t really use random words anymore, they have chunks of seemingly “real” text at the bottom?

This came in a spam email today.

‘But naturally I am not so much interested in the buses and telephones
and such like . . .’
‘Apparatus,’ prompted Faggot.
‘Precisely, thank you,’ drawled the magician in a deep bass, ‘ as in
the much more important question : have the Muscovites changed inwardly? ‘
‘A vital question indeed, sir.’
In the wings, glances were exchanged, shoulders shrugged; banker’s tape
and marked ‘ One Thousand Roubles’. His neighbours crowded round as he
picked at the wrapping with his fingernail to find out whether it was real
money or a stage prop.

I’m fascinated. Is that a real story? Does mass-mailing software pull chunks from Project Gutenberg books? Who would name a character Faggot? Why are magicians fascinated with Russia? What happens between the shoulders shrugging and the tape, where clearly at least one line is missing? Is this a scene from The Prestige II?

Also, new bowl. Blue with purple sparklies.

I was at Jo-Ann today, because it’s next to the post office and I needed packing tape and lo and behold they sell it, and I bought this adorable craft kit
and I just made a shiny little plastic bowl with a Christmas tree in the middle of it and I rule.

SEE?

Tomorrow I’m making a pretty blue one with swirlies in.

In the bathroom at work this afternoon, I observed that if you stare at little black tiles with white grout for a few seconds, you start to see pretty tiles in shades of maroon and navy blue and hunter green and other dark, subtle colors, but if you look away for an instant they turn black again.

On the train home, I observed a woman reading a book, marking her place with a bookmark made of a strip of photos from a carnival photo booth. In each photo, a smiling couple (the woman on the train and a nice-looking young man) were holding a handmade sign. In the first photo, the sign said “SAVE.” In the second, “THE.” In the third, “DATE.” And in the bottom photo, “August 26, 2006.” The bookmark was a save-the-date card from her wedding. I thought that was just adorable.

And just now, reading something about September 11, I observed that somewhere about fifteen years ago, and I didn’t notice, the term “skyjacking” disappeared. “Hijack” used to refer to trains and ships. The Achille Lauro was hijacked. I remember that. For a while, airplane hijackings were called skyjackings. When did that stop? If a train or ship were hijacked now, would the term “hijack” still be used, or would it be reconstructed in the other direction?